1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to booking of hotel accommodations for travelers, and more particularly, to automating the process of exchanging information regarding hotel bookings.
2. Background Art
At the present time, the process of booking hotel accommodations lags far behind in automation compared to its close relative, the process of booking airline tickets. In the airline industry, Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) exist to consolidate the information regarding flights, seats, times of departure and arrival, prices, etc. Virtually all the world's airlines, and, for all practical purposes, all the travel agents, are connected to one or more GDSs. This permits a relatively painless process of booking a flight (either by the travel agent, or by the consumer directly through the Internet), confirming the purchase, collecting the money from the passenger, etc.
In the hotel industry, this is far from being the case. Unlike airline seats (which come essentially in only three “varieties”—economy class, business class, and first class, with possibly some minor variations, such as “premium economy” on some airlines), there is a lack of standardization in the hotel industry of the terms used to describe a particular room, and a vastly greater variety of products offered to the consumer. For example, one hotel could refer to its room with a queen-size bed, roughly 40 square meters in area, and having an ocean view, as “DBL-DLX-Ocean-VW.” Another hotel could refer to the same exact type of room as “Double Queen—Deluxe View.” This presents a problem in automating the reservation process.
Because the GDSs, the travel agents, consolidators and the hotels all frequently use their own codes to describe the same products (for example, the same double room with a sea view can also be called DBLVIEW, DBSVW, etc., by other hotels), there is no consistency in the information exchange between the various “actors,” in the reservation process.
Although many hotels also subscribe to the GDSs, and therefore some hotel information is available through the GDSs, this information is incomplete. In essence, the process of booking a hotel room through a travel agent has changed little in the last 15-20 years, when fax machines became widely available. The travel agent sends a fax to the hotel, requesting to book a room. That fax is received, printed out, and is then manually entered into the hotel's reservation system. A confirmation is then sent back to the travel agent, by fax, email or through some other mechanism.
It should be remembered that frequently, a confirmation received during an online booking process, through many travel websites, does not, in fact, “confirm” that the room will be available to the customer. The confirmation that many travel websites provide to the consumer is not a confirmation from the hotel, but only a confirmation from the travel website. It is entirely possible for the consumer to show up at the hotel, only to discover that there is, in fact, no room waiting for him at the price agreed to earlier.
A “consolidator” is essentially another term for a very large travel agency or a tour operator. A consolidator often has smaller travel agents as its customers. The travel agent in turn has consumers, or hotel guests, as its customers. Consolidators, being larger business entities, frequently have their own computer systems that keep track of sales, allocations, places, etc. The information in the consolidator's own database is normally sufficient to actually sell the room—in other words, the consolidator knows the price, the customer's name, the hotel, and, given the allocation, that the room will actually be available. Note, however, that a confirmation from the consolidator is still not necessarily a confirmation that the room has actually been reserved by that guest for that hotel. It is only a confirmation from the consolidator's computer system. Note also that frequently, the travel agent (with whom the customer deals with directly) calls not the hotel, but the consolidator, and passes the consolidator's confirmation (not the hotel's confirmation) on to the customer. The consolidator, at this point, still needs to fax to the hotel the reservation, and receive the hotel's confirmation.
An “allocation,” or “allotment,” in the travel industry, refers to an agreement between a particular hotel (or hotel chain) and a travel agent, (or a consolidator, or tour operator, etc.) Essentially, the consolidator promises the hotel that he will sell X number of rooms, and the hotel gives the travel agent a certain price (which, given the volume sale, is usually at a discount from its “standard” rates). However, since the hotel does not want the inventory to simply “sit there,” usually there is a time limit on the allocation, for example, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, etc. In other words, the travel agent can only book the room at most X days in advance.
Many travel agencies, particularly large ones, have their own separate allocations with many hotels. Other travel agents do not have separate agreements, but instead rely on published hotel room prices. Typically, each hotel that has such allocation agreements with a consolidator, assigns a code to each such consolidator. Frequently, the particular allocation agreement (or discount) that the hotel gives to the consolidator is also assigned its own special code by the hotel. This code (rate code) needs to be communicated to the hotel by the consolidator when booking the room for the customer.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional “disconnected” environment used to make hotel reservations. As shown in FIG. 1, customers 102 can interface to a central reservations office (CRO) 104, to a hotel web site 106, to an alternate distribution system (ADS) 108, or to travel agents and wholesalers (consolidators) 110 (or to their websites 111). The alternate distribution systems 108 and the travel agents 110 can interface to the Global Distribution Systems 112. The central reservations office 104, the hotel web site 106, and Global Distribution Systems 112 then, in turn, interface to a property group 114 (in other words, a hotel chain consisting of, e.g., A, B, C, D, or, in some instances, a single hotel-in this example, only hotels A and B have a central reservations office). As noted by the dotted and dashed lines in the FIG. 1, most of the interfaces to the property group (hotel) 114 are manual, requiring faxing of the reservation information and then manual entry into the hotel's computer system. (in this example, the only truly automated path is between 106, 104 and hotels A and B)
All bookings require a confirmation from the hotel 114, otherwise, they are not treated as “confirmed” bookings. Frequently a 48-hour turn around time is required for bookings to be confirmed. This restricts publishing of last minute availability of hotel rooms, since most hotels do not operate a 24-hour reservation center. Although the numbers are generally geographic and hotel-specific, the problem is a common one in the travel industry.
One way to send reservation requests to a hotel, as shown in FIG. 1, is from a hotel (or chain) website 106. The website 106 can be linked via a middleware application or service to the hotel central reservation office (CRO) 104, which in turn connects to the Property Management System (PMS) at the hotel being booked.
However, the link between CRO 104 and PMS may only be one-way, i.e., the CRO and web site only have a limited view of the availability at the hotel 114. The hotel's PMS is the only true view of a hotel's room inventory in real-time. Also, there are costs associated with licensing and supporting the middleware tier used to make the booking; there may be additional costs per transaction
Another way is using middleware (i.e., a third party application that can talk to the PMS). The website 106 links to the hotel PMS using the middleware or the website 106 can simply send an email request to the reservations department from the web user/customer. If there is a direct connection to the PMS, then this is the best option available, but it will have transaction costs or support and maintenance cost associated with it. If the websitelO6 is not connected to the PMS, then there is a problem with managing the allocation and rates shown on the website, in addition to the process required in making and confirming the booking at the hotel level.
Another way is for the hotel 114 to use a market representation company 116 to process all bookings. This usually involves having the booking section of the hotel website 106 provided by a third party and residing in an HTML frame on another server. This option usually has a sales cost associated with it, and does not help the hotel 114 reduce costs by dealing directly with guest. The market representation company 116 is essentially acting as a travel agent and making the sale on behalf of the hotel 114. The hotel 114 has limited control over the “look and feel” of the booking element of the website 106.
Also, the market representation company 116 does not have a direct link into the hotel PMS, so each reservation received via the web site 106 will need to be manually entered into the PMS, possibly introducing error and delay.
Consolidators 110 can send faxes or emails to the hotel CRO 104, which are processed manually in a Central Reservation System (CRS) (not shown in FIG. 1, but usually located in the CRO 104) by a reservation agent, and a CRS confirmation is sent back manually to the consolidator via fax or email. This method relies on reservation agents receiving communication that is then printed out and re-keyed (or cut and pasted) into a CRS. A CRS confirmation (not a confirmation from the PMS/hotel) is then sent back to the consolidator 110. Similar issues exist when using travel agent or consolidator websites 111 to make the booking.
Market representation companies 116 do not have direct links to the hotel PMS, so each reservation has to be sent to the hotel 114 and then printed out and re-keyed (or cut and pasted) into the PMS. The consolidator 110 is provided with a confirmation by the market representation company 116, but this is no guarantee that the hotel 114 has even received the booking.
Yet another way is for the consolidator 110 to use a GDS 112 to make the booking. However, the GDS 112 is the most disconnected channel to the hotel 114.
The hotel 114 only provides a limited view of availability to the GDS 112 and incurs an additional charge higher than that of a market representation company 116 fee for every booking process at the GDS 112 level. Today it is very rare to find a GDS 112 that has a direct connection to a hotel at the PMS level required to process bookings in near real-time
Another way to reserve a room is through Alternative Distribution Systems (ADSs) 108. This is essentially the same scenario as using travel agents or consolidators 110, discussed above. ADSs 108 tend to be large online travel portals that are treated by hotels 114 as consolidators or wholesalers of rooms. Their focus tends to be based on price and convenience to their customers. Many hotels provide ADSs 108 with last minute (volatile) inventory at much reduced rates, and therefore have to put considerable effort into managing this sales channel, as far as what the hotel 114 can sell, and at what rate. This is usually done through a form of extranet, requiring the reservations staff to log into the system to upload inventory and rates on a daily or even hourly basis.
However, ADSs 108 sell online and provide customers with their own confirmation codes, without being able to guarantee that the hotel has received the reservation. In many instances, hotels 114 have to connect to the ADS 108 extranet to retrieve any booking for their property—in other cases an email (or fax) is sent to the hotel 114 containing the reservation request. Therefore, each reservation has to be printed out and re-keyed (or cut and pasted) into the PMS before a valid hotel 114 confirmation can be sent back by email or after connecting to the ADS 108 extranet.
Accordingly, there is a need in the industry for an automated “exchange” that permits booking of hotel rooms and exchange of actual confirmation information, while maintaining confidentiality of hotel-travel agent commercial information.